If you’re like me, there’s something about entering a new year where I want to make it the best yet: more intimacy in my prayer life, more intimacy in my relationships, more intimacy in my commitment to Bible reading, and more. The New Year has a way of resetting my clock to a new start, and I love that. I’ve always enjoyed buying a new journal and starting afresh. (For more on that topic, listen to my podcast “God’s a Blast to Know. Discover Him Through Journaling.”)
God warned the prophet Haggai, “Consider your ways” (Haggai 1:5), urging him to slow down and reflect on his people’s half-hearted relationship with Him. If we’re not careful, it’s easy to go from month to month coasting along without being intentional about our walk with Christ.
Now, at the beginning of a new year, is a great time to “consider our ways” and move toward significant positive changes for the best. Here are a few questions I’m contemplating to keep me on that path.
1. What’s one thing I could do this year to increase my enjoyment of God?
2. What’s one thing I could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy I want to leave for my children and grandchildren?
3. What’s the most seemingly impossible thing I want to ask God to do this year?
4. What is the biggest time-waster in my life, and what will I do about it?
5. What’s the most important way I will, by God’s grace, make this year different from last?
6. What’s the most important decision I need to make this year?
7. How can I simplify my life this year?
8. In what area of my life do I need the most need change, and what will I do about it?
9. What habit would I most like to get rid of this year?
10. What’s the most important thing I could do to improve the quality of my family life this year?
11. Who is the person I most want to encourage?
12. What is my most important financial goal for this year? How can I achieve it?
13. How can I best take care of my body this year?
14. What one thing do I most regret about last year, and what will I do differently this year?
15. Who do I need to forgive this year?
If you’ve found any of these questions thought-provoking, then join the party. Maybe we should put them in a place where we could see them regularly, as reminders to press on. None of us can accomplish all of them, but what if we accomplished at least ten for the entire year? Success always has a beginning point.
Proverbs 21:5 reminds us, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage.” Yet at the same time John 15:5 warns us, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”
I don’t know about you, but I want this year to be my biggest spiritual “growth spurt” yet. Hope you’ll join me!
About Pam Kanaly
Aloha! I’m Pam Kanaly, President and co-founder of Arise Ministries. But actually, I think Arise found me wanting to bless single moms years ago. Ministry was never on my mind as a kid. All I wanted to be was a hula dancer. So Mother enrolled me in the tiny tots’ class. Guess God knew I’d have two grandbabies born in Hawaii. I love the great outdoors. You might even find me spending time with my husband grizzly bear watching or camping. In fact, it was on a turkey hunt that God gave me the name Arise Ministries in 2002. I suppose it’s a good thing that I majored in Grammar in college since I love to write words of encouragement to single moms.